My first journey out of London was to spend two weeks with crofter John MacLeod on the island of Harris. Most of my days were spent in Grosebay (Greòsabhagh in Gaelic), about halfway down the east coast of the island. Harris's coastline is made up of bay after bay, each one with a smattering of houses and its own particular character.
Work involved looking after the sheep (black-faced), highland cattle (Dorothy, Morag and The Other Feller) and hens. The sheep and cattle provide lamb and (sometime next decade) beef for the freezer, and the hens provide meat and a constant supply of eggs, which John sells locally.
There are also raised beds dotted all over the croft on any available flat or relatively shallow-angled piece of land, to grow the traditional staples of potatoes, corn and other vegetables (they're called layzbeds, though there's nothing lazy about the effort needed to maintain them).
One afternoon we took a ride across the isthmus to Lewis. It's flatter than Harris, which makes it feel grand and very moody. We visited the standing stones at Callanish, then stopped off in Stornoway for a while.
At the time there was a proposal for a huge wind farm on Lewis, and I got mixed views on it from the people I met: any investment that could slow the loss of people to the mainland was good, and there was unease at well organised lobbying against it by people from outside, with an interest in keeping things picturesque for their holiday accommodation. In the end the proposal was rejected "based on European rulings".
The island is reputed to have had trees once - the story is that a Norse queen took one look at the island from a boat and said they offended her, so she demanded they all be cut down (the remains of hazel have been found in some peat digs).
Harris is a very beautiful place, with the sky, land and sea feeling very alive and providing changing moods and atmospheres every hour of the day. But as we drove around the island visiting the sandy beaches on the west coast, John was pointing at every other house and saying "Self catering... self catering".
